THE LONG and the short of it is that business has reached rock bottom.

So in order to lift it, local plasterer Robert Foxton, has had to get a bit high and mighty.

He has taken to the streets of Macclesfield on a pair of stilts in order to drum up a bit of trade.

Bachelor Robert, 39, who runs Macc Plast from his home on Regents Foundry Court, Macclesfield, briefly went up in the world to get his message over, dressed in his work overalls and armed with a trowel.

Like the builders in The Full Monty, who turn to male-stripping to make ends meet, he decided that he had nothing to lose in handing out his business cards dressed a bit like a clown.

After all he does use the circus-type props in the normal course of his work.

"I went to a job once and a little girl came running in to her mum and said 'mummy, mummy, there's a clown in the living room' - because of the stilts - so l thought it was worth a try to put them on to drum up some business.

"I gave out 200 cards and it was a good bit of fun. I got a mixed reaction - some people took the mickey and were nasty whilst others were nice. But l did get three ceiling jobs out of it and a builder even came up to me and said 'good on you'.

"The Drop In Centre made me a brew as well and l'm going to do some work for a friend in there."

Irish born Robert who has lived in Macclesfield for ten years, said that since Christmas his work has gradually dried up.

"I would normally be taking home £600 a week but this has fallen, at first to £200, then to £100 and now it's whatever l can get. There is no work in plastering because the building trade has dropped off.

"This time last year the phone would never stop ringing but that's not the case anymore."

He claims that the government's immigration policy is one of the causes of his plight - letting in Polish and Russian labourers.

"The building trade has been ruined by the government but they still want us to pay our poll tax. It is only the people at the top of the tree that make the money."

Robert also thinks that a culture of debt has caused people to be more wary with money over the last year.

"Everybody is in debt up to their eyeballs. Everybody has run out of money because all they have done is taken out bank loans to pay-off their credit cards and they haven't got any spare cash."